Defeating the Cobra Kai Just Like The Karate Kid



I have a lot of fun coaching youth sports (4 seasons of soccer, 2 of basketball so far), but I never really planned to coach. When my oldest daughter first joined a soccer team, I offered to help the coach -- my idea was to be like the team gopher, because I didn't know very much about soccer. I discovered two things very quickly: (1) the coach knew even less about soccer than I did and (2) her temperament made her unfit to coach young children. In fact, she was removed from the league after chasing her own daughter across the practice field with a belt. I very unexpectedly was promoted from gopher to head coach.

Every season, I see two very different approaches to coaching young children. On one hand, there is the Cobra Kai method with lots of yelling, punishment for poor performance, and the explicit belief that winning is all that matters. On the other hand, there is the Mr. Miyagi approach of learning the game, trying to have fun, and the explicit belief that we like to win but enjoy the competition regardless of the outcome.

Keep in mind that I'm talking about coaching kids under 8 years old.

Every season, the Cobra Kai coaches win more games (on average) than the Miyagi teams. Every season, I'm more convinced that Cobra Kai coaching techniques are horrible when used with young kids. That's why I keep coaching; I can't stand the idea of a grown man screaming at my kids because a ball went out of bounds. I figure that I might not be Mr. Miyagi, but I "can't possible be worse than Sensei John Kreese from the Karate Kid."

This season, we actually had our Karate Kid moment. The Cobra Kai team beat us soundly early in the season. In the final game, we had to play them again. Somehow, we pulled out a 2 point victory at the end - and we didn't even need a black belt in basketball.

Which is better: a hard focus on winning or a soft focus on learning?

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